After a wonderful visit with my parents, we were back on the road again! Michael and I headed out to Moab to check the last 2 of the Mighty Five parks off our list: Arches and Canyonlands. Our good friend David from Yellowstone took a seasonal job at Canyonlands, and he was gracious enough to let us stay with him for a few nights.

We spent one day at each park since they are within an hour of each other and hiked some gorgeous trails. The geology and formations are drastically different than Zion, and we enjoyed taking in all the arches, cultural structures and history of the parks.

At Arches, we hiked the most famous trails in the park including Delicate Arch, and we were able to go on a guided tour of the Fiery Furnace, a wilderness hike! The Fiery Furnace is a pretty rugged hike that includes squeezing through some narrow passageways, but the views are incredible and so worth it. We had a super neat Ranger as our guide and a good crew, so it was an absolute blast.

After a whirlwind of adventure at the national parks, we decided to take it easy and play pure tourist the next weekend, heading up to Salt Lake City. We celebrated Michael’s 24th birthday, went to Timpanogos Cave National Monument and Golden Spike National Historic Park, visited Temple Square, saw the Great Salt Lake and swam in a crater!

After back-to-back weekends of adventure, I had one more thing to look forward to. A visit from my little sister Sarah, 4 days together of time, what a blessing it was!

We had plenty of adventures including tubing on the Virgin River, going on several hikes, meeting some of my buddies and even sneaking up to Bryce Canyon for a day!

In the upcoming weeks, we’re getting into some of our raddest adventures to come, and having some wonderful visitors come see me in Zion. But until then, thanks for reading and Ranger On!